The other night I was browsing through Netflix’s vast library looking for a movie to watch. I couldn’t find anything that I was in the mood to watch, so I caved into choosing one of their suggested movies for me. I ended up watching Goon, a little known 2011 sports comedy that I must have ignored a thousand times before. I thought it was just a random hockey flick starring Stifler. I’m really glad that I was wrong. Seann William Scott plays Doug Glatt, a nice guy and self aware dummy with a skill for fisticuffs. His talent is enough to get him a gig as an enforcer with a minor league hockey team. He can hardly skate but he knows how to punch, and his love of the game transforms his team from a rag tag bunch of losers into playoff contenders. It sounds cliche. It kind of is. There’s even a tacked on romantic subplot.
But it’s good. It’s really funny, there’s a lot of action, it’s sappy when it needs to be, and it’s genuine. You can’t fake honesty. Jay Baruchel cowrote the movie, and he costars in it. It was a passion project of his and it shows. He’s even tacked on to direct the sequel. Liev Schreiber plays a rival enforcer on another team and provides a lot of enjoyable drama as you await the inevitable matchup between the two gladiators. Alison Pill plays the imperfect love interest. Eugene Levy plays the awkward dad. Marc-André Grondin plays the cocky teammate who squandered his talent and only plays for himself. Kim Coates plays the coach who tries to control his players and get them to work as a team. It’s a solid movie with a solid cast and the film deserves a lot more attention.
So I decided to blog about Goon in order to get the word out. Good movies deserve to be watched. Goon is a good movie. I was a little late to find out about it, but I still beat you to it if you haven’t seen it yet. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you should. It’s worth it. I promise.